


The Terrible Twosome

by the_lost_robot



Series: Touching Atmosphere [5]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Crosshairs being an asshole, Gen, Gore, Hound communicates primarily by bullets, What else is new?, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 07:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2499110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_lost_robot/pseuds/the_lost_robot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These cycles he's so jaded that he'll sit on top of a cliff, trying to decide if it's worth his while to go down there, shoot some Cons and save a fellow Autobot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Terrible Twosome

**Author's Note:**

> The usual. Not mine.

Crosshairs perched on the edge of the cliff and peered down curiously. The sound of gunfire wasn't anything new to him. Being war built sometimes meant it was difficult to recharge without it in fact, but it had been a while since he's heard the sound of Cybertronian weaponry. He'd been drawn here, to this small dwarf planet by an energon signal. Faint, weak, fuel was fuel be it raw energon or whatever sad dregs Crosshairs was going to have to extract out of a Decepticon corpse. 

Or...it could be something else entirely.

Crosshairs' goggles slid down over his optics, zooming in on the little drama occurring at the bottom of the cliff. Five mecha, four ganging up on the fifth. Come on, come on, the paratrooper scanned the unknowns for-

Ah! There. Purple badges on the four. The fifth, who had his back against the wall and was spewing an impressively tirade of insults. Crosshairs couldn't see an Autobrand but, "Get over here, you scum sucking Con cowards," made for some compelling evidence that big and green was an Autobot.

Now, what to do about this….Crosshairs drummed the fingers of one hand against his knee. He could, of course, jump down into the fray and join it. Come to the rescue of his fellow Autobot. And he'd have done it. A few thousand vorns ago, younger, more hopeful Crosshairs wouldn't have thought twice about lending a helping hand.

These cycles he's so jaded that he'll sit on top of a cliff, trying to decide if it's worth his while to go down there, shoot some Cons and save a fellow Autobot. The answer, inevitably was yes, but he sat around long enough debating with himself that Big and Green took a few more shots and went down hard. Even this was not enough to galvanize Crosshairs into immediate action. Instead, the Autobot leisurely checked his subspace, making certain that he still had a few spare explosives and grabbing an SMG from where it was stowed in his upper leg before finally deciding, okay, time to get a move on.

Nimbly, Crosshairs jumped off the cliff, digging his left hand and foot into the cliff to control his fall. No point making a jump here, all it would do was risk damage to his parachute. Which wasn't all that easy to repair these cycles. As he descended down the cliff, he raised his SMG and started shooting, his aim enhanced by his goggles.

The first bullets ripped through the closest Decepticon. He staggered, then went down as more tore through his spark chamber. Crosshairs kicked off the cliff wall, still shooting. A second Decepticon fell while they were still struggling to understand they were under attack. By that time, Crosshairs had hit the ground, right next to the first body. He quickly hauled it up with his free hand, protecting himself from the returning fire. Hot plasma began to eat into his temporary shield, so Crosshairs heaved it at the remaining two Decepticons as he threw himself out the side, firing his SMG.

One Decepticon was weighed down by the body, the other went down under his bullets. Calmly, the paratrooper straightened up and sauntered over as the remaining purple badge, still struggling to remove the corpse on top of him. Crosshairs placed the tip of his gun right on the Con's face, then squeezed the trigger once.

The Decepticon stopped struggling after that.

Crosshairs stood straight, the battlefield suddenly quiet and calm. No more enemies. The danger was over. The fight was done. He turned almost idly to the Autobot, approaching slowly as his goggles retracted back up. Now he could see the red Autobrand, confirming the mech as one of his own. The lack of bullets in his back had been another clue but it never hurt to be sure.

The first words he got from his new, _extremely grateful_ friend were, "Hotshot, I had those Cons right where I wanted them. Where the Pit do you come in, stealing my kills?"

Crosshairs raised one optic ridge. "Right you were," he said flatly, disinterestedly examining the hole in the bot's leg and the energon leaking out. Crosshairs was no medic but he'd seen enough wounds to tell what was fatal and what wasn't. The rusty pile of gears in front of him wasn't in any danger of dying any time soon so the paratrooper turned his attention back to the freshly cooling corpses he'd created, striding over to the nearest one.

"Oi! Just where do you think you're going?"

"Where does it look like?" Crosshairs answered, crouching over the orange grounder. He started feeling along the mech's armor, searching for gaps in the plating that he could use to wrench it off. "Away from you."

The other Autobot did not take kindly to being ignored. "Get your dumb aft back here and help me! Case you didn't notice, I'm leaking!"

Fingers curled round and still searching for a way to pry off the Con's chest plate, Crosshairs paused and glanced back. "What, and you need my help to fix you?" the paratrooper questioned, his lip plates curling in an unpleasant smirk.

The other Autobot settled back, grumbling and unsubspacing a repair kit and set to work on sealing the hole in his leg. Crosshairs had finally found the perfect grip, both hands curled round and wrenched the chassis plating off the Decepticon, exposing its internals to the outside world. Rubbing his hands with a certain amount of unholy glee, the paratrooper began to trace fuel lines, following them as he searched for the Decepticon's fuel pump.

"What are you doing over there?" Crosshairs' new friend asked cautiously.

Crosshairs hummed to himself for a moment as he debated whether to answer the Autobot or not. Deciding that eh, it didn't matter, it was going to be fairly obvious, the paratrooper shrugged and raised his head, boldly staring down Big and Green. "Siphoning energon. Why, what didja think I was doing?"

He got a disgusted grumble at that and an aghast expression in return. "Don't you have any respect for the dead? Fragging ghoul."

"I'm not seeing a better source of energon out here," Crosshairs smiled pleasantly, well aware of the picture he made, hands buried in the Decepticons internals and rooting around. "Unless you're hauling around a whole seam of it in your subspace or something."

Big's gaze turned wary and thoughtful. "Oh yeah? And what would you do if I did? Gonna kill me and take it? Cuz the way I see it, you wear the red but you sure as slag ain't a Bot."

Externally, there was no reaction for Crosshairs. Internally though, those words smoldered as long buried resentment tried to make itself known. "Partner, if I was a Con, I'd have shot you first," he laughed confidently. His fingers finally found it, the energon pump buried deep within the frame. Crosshairs unsubspaced a cube, then wrenched the pump out and slid the cube inside. He massaged the fuel lines, encouraging whatever dregs still inside them to flow down into the cube.

Ignoring the disgusted grunts from his unwanted audience, Crosshairs harvested as much fuel as he could from the corpse before moving onto the next, filling as many spare cubes as he had. By the time he was done, Big and Green had fixed his leg and patched the other holes the Cons had put on him, but he made no move to stand up.

Crosshairs quirked an optic at him. "There a problem?" he wondered, suspecting the answer. "Or have you forgotten how to walk?"

He received a snarl as the other Autobot determinedly forced himself to his feet. His large bulk wavered unsteadily, but he managed...for a couple of astroseconds. Then he stumbled and dropped again with a moan, a hundred curses and a large metallic clank onto the hard rocks. The fifty million weapons he has strapped to him strike up their own musical chorus.

"Need some help?" Crosshairs queried, sipping casually on a cube as if there wasn't a damaged Autobot right in front of him.

"Not from you," the mech hissed viciously, arms flopping and flailing helplessly. But there was a glazed look in his optics that Crosshairs knew well.

The debate within Crosshairs took several long breems to settle itself as he refueled, ignoring the burnt flavor that came from contaminants and impurities from a mech's fuel lines. He could do nothing as Big and Green wanted, allow the Autobot maintain his pride and succumb to his injuries. Or he could… Crosshairs optics narrowed as his vents let out a rough exhale. "Tough luck," he growled, striding over.

Then stopped as Green actually managed to lift one of his obscenely large guns and point it in Crosshairs direction. "Stay the frag away...from me," the mech wheezed. "You try to touch me ghoul and I will blow your stupid head right off."

...well, this was going to be the last time Crosshairs helped his fellow bot, if this was the reaction he was going to get. The paratrooper sneered, holding his servos up in a placating manner. "Fine," he said. He unsubspaced a recently filled cube and tossed it at the big mech. It landed in the dirt besides Green's foot. "I hope it poisons your fuel intake."

Crosshairs backed off, heading over back to the corpses. Not once did he turn his gaze away from that large gun pointed at him. Casually, he sprawled on the ground besides one of them. The empty cube of energon he recently refueled with, he played with in his hands, in full view of Green. The paratrooper was well aware that he was being an aft and taunting the energon deprived mech, but honestly, he was not seeing the problem. A lot of fuel had leaked out of Big while he'd been patching those holes the Decepticons had torn into him and he clearly didn’t have any to spare or he'd refueled already. So, Crosshairs shrugged internally, make do with what you had.

It wasn't like the Decepticons needed their fuel anymore.

"There's a seam nearby," Crosshairs new buddy said abruptly. "Energon reserve. 's why I came here. Gotta ship and some tools, had nearly dug it up when the Cons came by. I'll ping ya the co-ordinates, so you can go get me some real fuel instead of this bile."

The cube in Crosshairs' grip stilled. He lifted his helm up, ensuring Big knew he was him his full attention.

"Don't bother."

"What?"

Crosshairs shrugged and went back to spinning the cube round in his hands. "Don't wanna," he answered simply. "That sounds like  more work on my part than if you just use the energon I pilfered. Refuel and go do it yourself." 

Fuel was fuel. Freshly extracted energon would really be no better than the crude swill he'd pulled from the corpses. Crosshairs had made do with worse and energon was a dwindling resource. You really couldn't afford to be picky about where you got it from, these cycles unless you wanted to offline from starvation. And he really didn't see why he had to do more work when he'd been more than generous and patient with Big and Green. The paratrooper could have left him in the dirt, could have left him to the Decepticons and yet he _hadn't_.

"You're a real nasty piece of work, _friend,_ " Green growled bitterly. There was still a fiercely determined look in his optics and he was staring off into the distance as though calculating whether it was feasible or not  to go after this aforementioned energon. More power to him, if he could manage it. Crosshairs was morbidly curious to see if the bot's pride would push him that far.

"Oh I dunno," Crosshairs leant forward, resting his arm and chin on his knee. His free hand kept playing away with that cube. "I'm starting to think I should have just kept watching. Less whining, if I had."

The sound of a gun firing was loud compared to the previous calm. A single bullet shattered the energon cube he was holding. The paratrooper slowly straightened his head up and looked over. Smoke wisped from the barrel of Green's gun.

"Go. Get the energon or the next one goes through your fragging head. And don't think I'll miss."

Calmly, like he wasn't being threatened to be an immensely slagged off Autobot, Crosshairs climbed to his feet. He received the co-ordinates Big had pinged at him and, with a swirl of his coat, the paratrooper sauntered off. Another bullet struck the ground as a sign of Green's growing impatience because, quite frankly, Crosshairs wasn't walking all that quickly. The paratrooper waited until he was certain he was out of view, concealed by brown rocky hills and dusty outcrops that blocked Green's line of sight, before he opened a comm channel between them.

 _::See ya at your ship::_ Crosshairs pinged with obscene cheerfulness before folding into his alt mode and racing over the rocky terrain.

_::You slag sucking coward! Get your aft back here so I can rearrange your face!::_

_::Why don't you come after me and do it yourself?::_ he shot back. Oh, ordering Crosshairs to do anything had been a guarantee to get the mech to not do it at all. And he'd never _said_ he was going to do it. Big filled his comm channels with snarls, slurs, threats and promises of what he was going to do once he caught up with Crosshairs. The paratrooper ignored them all, eventually shutting down that channel.

It was a short drive to the Green's ship. The Decepticons hadn't chased him far. The stapship wasn't a big one, it could fit maybe four mecha total. If they squished themselves in. And by it, the promised mine. Although that was an overgenerous description. It was a rugged depression cut only a couple of meters into the rock face. Despite this, a faint blue glow emanated between the sharp and deepest edges. A few tools laid scattered on the ground in front of it, undoubtedly dropped when the Decepticons had attacked. It was to these he wandered over to, picking up the laser drill. Crosshairs lightly tossed it up and down in his hand a couple of times as he stared at that faint gleam, the goggles automatically sliding down to get a better look.

He stepped forward, peering hard as he balanced on the tips of his two toed feet. Then Crosshairs glanced back in the direction of the ship, then over in the direction of Big and Green. His lip plates pressed firmly together in disapproval. He really, reaaaally hated doing more work than he had to.

Crosshairs' fingers curled round the trigger and he got set into drilling.

\---

He heard the angry stomp of Green's footsteps long before the mech arrived inside the starship. There was a click and cold metal pressed against Crosshairs forehead. Lazily, the paratrooper onlined his optics to find Green's furious countenance in front of him. Crosshairs was sprawled back on the pilot's seat, hands folded underneath the back of his head and his feet resting on the console in front of him, the very picture of absolute relaxation.

"Got your energon right there, boss," he said mockingly, flicking a careless finger back to the starship's entrance. "When are we leaving?" 

"Give me one good reason not to blow your processor right here," the mech growled furiously. There was a touch of incredulity in his voice, as though he could not believe the gall the paratrooper had to stick around.

Crosshairs mulled over this question thoughtfully. He swivelled his chair around by pushing off the console with one foot. He, quite honestly, could not think of a reason beyond the, 'we're both Autobots,' line of defence and he knew the mech would not take it. "Dunno," he shrugged. "Outta the goodness of your spark, I guess? I mean, since _I_ clearly don't have one. Think about it, you really don't want to be like me, don't you?"

That earned him an angered snarl and the gun barrel pushed harder against his head for a long tense moment. Then it was pulled away, a strange look on Green's face, like he couldn't figure out what the frag he was dealing with. "Get out," he ordered curtly.

The paratrooper pulled his legs off the console and straightened up in his seat. He rested his head on a folded fist. "Your ion coils are damaged," he observed blandly. "And the plasma ring stabilizers are broken. I give you 3 mega-cycles before you come to dead halt in deep space. Maybe 5 mega-cycles if you let me have a look at them."

Green snorted and the gun was back. "What, are you an engineer now? Don't try pulling that slag with me, get off my ship."

"Not an engineer," Crosshairs retorted as he obligingly climbed to his feet. Internally, the words _but I knew one, well,_ flitted briefly and unbidden at the back of his processor before he ruthlessly shoved it away. "Just know my way 'round ships is all. Anyway, your call, _friend._ "

The paratrooper had almost made his way down to the exit before- "Wait!" Green leaned against the wall as he turned on a penetrating stare on Crosshairs. "What is your game here? What's your angle? You offer help, but in the most backhanded, fragged up way possible."

Crosshairs gave a dismissive shrug and turned a brief examination of his motives for the whole venture. The only thing that really seemed to come up was-

"Honestly? 'Think I'm very bored."

So bored, he apparently was looking for company and actually offering up help. Really, deep space was starting to get to him, clearly. Still, though. There was safety to be found in numbers as Big had demonstrated so thoroughly just now. Crosshairs could do with an Autobot watching his back...though given the _fantastic_ start he and Green had gotten off to, Crosshairs probably would be keeping watching for 'accidental' friendly fire.

Whatever answer Green had been expecting, boredom clearly wasn't it. He blinked dumbly, his head giving a small twitch of bafflement. A rumble of annoyance came from deep inside his chassis. Crosshairs could almost see the furious 'That's IT?' building within the mech. His fists clenched and the mech was probably longingly imagining taking a few swings at Crosshairs. Then Green gave his helm a shake and a low growl escaped. "'m name's Hound," he said at last. "Now go get your aft to work and fix whatever the slag's wrong with my ship."

Crosshairs gave a lazy smirk. "Crosshairs," he said. "Gonna put it out here right now about how this is going to work. _Don't_ give me orders and we'll do just fine."


End file.
